


The Prince's Pride

by gardnerhill



Category: Princess Bride (1987), Wild Wild West (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Princess Bride Fusion, Crack, Episode: s02e15 The Night of the Lord of Limbo, M/M, Period-Typical Racism, The Princess Bride References, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 13:09:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15995891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: This story may or may not bear a passing resemblance to William Goldman’s masterful “good parts” version of S. Morgenstern’s classic novel (and Rob Reiner’s marvelous film),The Princess Bride.





	The Prince's Pride

**Author's Note:**

> **A Note:** In the Wild WIld West episode "The Night of the Returning Dead," none other than Sammy Davis Jr. guest-starred as Jeremiah Carson, a stable-lad looking for the man who killed his parents - and the character is 100% Magical Negro (Jerry talks to animals, can imitate anyone, plays every musical instrument, causes wind and weather disturbances with his mind). SDJ's personality was far more interesting than the character's, so I may have broken the fourth wall a wee bit.

“Darling girl, I’m here!”

 

“Auntie Jane!” Cough! Cough cough!

 

“Oh dear, that sounds like a nasty cold. I see why your mother asked me to drop by–”

 

Cough! “‘S flu, not a cold.” Cough.

 

“Worse yet. ...Patty, what _is_ that godawful show you’re watching?”

 

“TVLand. Some old Western. It’s all Westerns during the day.”

 

“And no good ones, I see. BONANZA? Bleah. Boring, honey. Besides, watching TV in the middle of the day just makes you sicker[1]. Where is that thing...ah, here!”

 

Click.

 

“Hey!”

 

“That’s not the kind of Western you want to dream about.”

 

“But they’re so cute! Especially Little Joe. And ...well, it’s so sweet the way they take care of each other, y’know? And the way they worry about each other. Y’know?”

 

“I know. I know indeed. But BONANZA is a pallid, pale taste of what you really want out of a Western, dear. I have a fairy tale to tell you, that will give you what BONANZA does not.”

 

“Does it have cute guys?”

 

“No, Patty. It has beautiful men. Brave, heroic, beautiful men who love each other and fight every evil thing in the world for love of each other. And it’s a Western.”

 

“... Oh. My. God. Why don’t they show _that_ on TV during the day?”

 

“Because brave, beautiful men who love each other make the men who run the networks very nervous, dear. They’d rather show these boring fellows punching each other in a saloon all day. Would you like to hear the story?”

 

“Oh, yes, please!”

 

“All right, sit up on the headboard so you can hear better, and I’ll start.

 

“‘The Prince’s Pride’ by M. Garrison.’[2]

 

“Ahem. ‘Once upon a time, in the wild, wild West...’ "

 

***

 

Once upon a time, in the wild, wild West, there lived a prince whose duty it was to patrol this furthest portion of his father’s kingdom and defeat the evildoers who threatened the kingdom. Now the prince, whose name was James, was the finest fighter in the kingdom, and could not be beaten by any man, or indeed any group of men; he was a deadly shot with pistol and rifle, and was no mean hand with a sword.

 

Prince James was not only a fierce fighter but a handsome man, with a beautiful face and body, but it availed him not; for James was as beautiful and cold as a drift of pure winter snow. Many women sighed over his beautiful looks, and James courted them as befitted a prince in a far-flung country; but he did not love them. James was too proud to love, not even himself.

 

Now the prince’s two greatest pleasures in the world were defeating large numbers of enemies in a fight and ordering around his vassal. The vassal was a clever older fellow with the unlikely name of Artemus, and he had been sent along to assist the prince. The prince did not truly appreciate the hard work of Artemus; he saw only a useful assistant for his work, and he saw him only in black and white.[3]

 

“Artemus!” the Prince would say coldly to his vassal, “disguise yourself at once and lead away that band of robbers so that I may find what they have stolen!”

 

Artemus looked at James. Then he nodded. “As you wish,” he said, and put on his wig and makeup, and did indeed distract a band of armed men with only his clever words and disguises so that James could find the stolen valuables (and a kidnapped heiress).

 

“Artemus!” the Prince snapped, walking into the main car of the train they used to patrol their land. “Conjure up a device that will destroy whatever it touches when I give the command.”

 

Artemus smiled gently at the younger man and put down the violin he had been playing. “As you wish,” he said softly, and went into his room full of beakers and chemicals to conjure up an explosive that aided the Prince in escaping a locked stone room with a valuable document (and the captive daughter of the document’s custodian).

 

“Artemus!” James said at adventure’s end, with a lovely lady in his arms. “Look the other way so that I may receive the grateful kiss of this beautiful young woman.”[4]

 

Artemus averted his eyes as James kissed the rescued girl. “As you wish,” he whispered.

 

Because the Prince’s heart was buried in a snowbank, he could not see what burned in the dark eyes of his vassal, or hear what lay in the soft voice that obeyed his commands. He could not know that every time Artemus said “As you wish,” what he really said was “I love you.”

 

But one night Prince James came home, weary and bruised from a great fight; he was so tired and his arms ached so much he could not undress himself for bed. “Artemus,” he moaned, “take my shirt off.”

 

Big, warm hands took hold of James by the shoulders, and gently stroked. Off came the shirt. Warm, moist breath brushed James by the nape and the ear, and the soft, warm “As you wish” made him tremble. He looked at Artemus as the man’s big strong hands undid his belt and his fly. Artemus was warm and gentle. James shivered as Artemus kissed a large bruise on his shoulder, and another on his collar bone; he shuddered as the man sank to his knees before James, kissing him even as he stripped away trousers and linens. The prince’s aching need stood before him, as shameless as the vassal that knelt before it.

 

“Yes, Artemus, yes,” James whispered.

                

Artemus smiled like a sunrise. “As you wish.”

 

* * *

 

“And then what happened, Aunt Jane!”

 

“Tsk! You know very well what happened. This is _not_ a ‘kissing book,’ Patty – the men do a lot more than kissing. Unfortunately, it was all covered up by the commercial break. You’ll have to use your imagination.”

 

“Auntie!”

 

“Am I supposed to be shocked? Or you? I’ve seen the books on your shelves. Catch Trap, Gordon Merrick books, ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ The Epic of Gilgamesh. What could be older and more traditional than a story about man’s love for his fellow man?

 

“To continue.”

 

* * *

 

Artemus whistled with joy the next morning as he prepared breakfast for himself and the man he loved. For this was love that sang through his body this morning; true love.

 

But James appeared at the table and only said, with the same proud, cold voice, “Artemus. Pour my coffee!” The prince was still beautiful, and still as cold as a snowbank. To feel was to be weak. He was a fighter, not a weakling; a prince, not a vassal. Artemus had lain with him, as did many of the lovely women he had rescued; it was a comfort after a difficult day, nothing more.

 

His vassal poured his coffee. But he did not talk or joke, and tears stood in his eyes. Artemus was heartbroken.

 

That very night Artemus took his leave of the Prince. “I must go back to Washington,” he said to James, “for your father, good King Ulysses, will surely have better work for me to do.” But the real reason he was going was so that he could search for a cure for his Prince’s cold heart and inability to love.

 

Artemus mounted his round fat brown horse, Falstaff, and rode away to the east. The Prince watched his vassal go; he did not understand why he felt so uneasy in his core or so uncomfortable at seeing the vassal out of sight. Artemus had been a valuable colleague and a loyal aide in his work quelling the evildoers of the wild West. Nothing more. Surely, there had been nothing more there.

 

But the wild, wild West was a dangerous place; many enemies lurked still, despite the Prince’s (and Artemus’) good work. And it was not long before word came back to the Prince: Artemus had not traveled half the distance of his journey to DC when he had been waylaid by the evil wizard Vautrain; he had vanished, as had so many others at the hands of wicked sorcerors in that part of the country, and who were never seen again.

 

Now a pain lived in the Prince that he could not escape. He was a great number of unpleasant things – cold, callous, brutal, haughty – but he was not a coward nor feebleminded. The thought of his vassal – of Artemus – in the hands of enemies stirred him to cold anger. It was past time he dealt with the foul sorcerers who infested the southern land and harried the people there – and time for a captive to be brought back to peace and safety once again.

 

So James saddled up his own horse, a gleaming black stallion named Hal[5], and rode east and south, looking for any trace of Artemus, or the evil wizard Vautrain. He asked everyone he met if they had seen anything that would help him in his search.

 

“No, _señor_ ,” the _jefe_ of a band of _pistoleros_ said[6], while his men laughed and fingered their weapons, “we do not go anywhere near that _brujo_. He is evil – so evil his very house is _un hombre-comador_ , a man-eater – none who walk in have ever come out!” James thanked the _pistoleros_ by beating all of them in a fist-fight.

 

“Nary a sign, young whippersnapper,” cackled an old forty-niner, scratching his burro’s ears. “Don’t hold with that side-windin’, cracker-croaker son of a prairie dog! Fork-tongued rattler’s as fulla black magic as a aig’s fulla meat! Injun magic too, I’d stake my claim on it, that horn-swogglin’ no-count!” Impressed by the man’s command of authentic frontier gibberish[7], James bought the old fellow a bottle of forty-rod whiskey[8] and went on his way.

 

“Fiddle dee-dee!” said a black-haired woman in a velvet green hoopskirt, digging for radishes near the blackened ruins of a grand planter’s home[9]. Her eyes were colder and more calculating than James’. “He’s in New Orleans, of course, all those voodoo workers and Yankee tricksters are there. I’ve heard there’s a man-eating house, where no one leaves. And whatever you do, Prince James,” and she stopped fanning and fixed him with her sharp, cold eyes, “do not stop looking for him, ever. Ever! No matter what failure today is, tomorrow is another day!” James thanked her with a kiss – which dimmed and warmed her dagger-cold eyes for a full minute – and headed down the Mississippi to New Orleans.

 

***

 

New Orleans is a city in a land that is dank and heavy, an old land full of bayous and a people full of dark magic. Danger lies heavy in the air, even when the people shout and laugh in their carnival masques; it is no place for the fearful or the weak. Prince James was neither of those; he put on a masque, as did many to hide their true selves from the evil eyes of sorcerors, and entered the city.

 

The Prince didn’t like the idea of anyone helping him or of needing anyone’s help. But a magical enemy would be better defeated with magical help, and he knew nothing of magic. The Prince rode past the Street of Magical Indians, then past the Street of Magical Orientals. But the third street, he turned down – the Street of Magical Negroes. Here, everywhere, he saw white men (and some white women) beseeching wise-looking and humble-acting black people to help them. The Negroes were all sorts; old men, fat women, wide-eyed children.

 

But only one of them stood in the street and stopped Hal – a one-eyed stable boy. “Prince James,” the stable boy said. “My name is Jeremiah, and your horse says that I am your Magical Negro.”[10]

 

* * *

 

“Magical _Negro_? Auntie Jane, what’s a Magical Negro?”

 

“Oh, you know the Magical Negro, dear – they’re in practically every movie and a lot of books. It’s the wise mystical black sidekick whose job is to help the white hero save the day, or win the big game, or marry the white girl. There are Magical Negroes in _Ghost, Green Mile, Bagger Vance, Matrix_ –”

 

“Oh, I get it! Oh, I see what you mean. Weird!”

 

“Yeah. Sounds cool, but it also means that blacks don’t get to be the heroes in those movies. It’s always about what the white guy wants, have you noticed that[11]?

 

“Anyway!”

 

* * *

 

“Jeremiah,” the Prince said. “Please help me. Tell me what I need to know.”

 

“Brother Wolf seeks Brother Coyote,” Jeremiah said enigmatically. “The Windigo has Coyote and will not release him; Windigo’s heart is ice.”

 

“I don’t have time for mystical riddles,” James snapped. “Speak clear! Use your own, truest voice!”

 

Jeremiah immediately stopped the humble-servant routine. He flashed James a grin and his single good eye twinkled. “Oh, baby, your main cat is in the grip of a bad, bad guy. _Very_ uncool. You’ll need me along on this one.”

 

“What can you do?” James asked.

 

“I can talk to animals,” Jeremiah said, the grin still tilting one corner of his mouth. "I can imitate anybody, I can play the flute, and I’ve got pipes, amigo.” Jeremiah pulled out a Colt .45 and fired upward and behind him – and the small round knob on the end of the building's lightning rod flew off. "I can do that too."

 

“You’re hired,” the Prince said. “What do you charge for your services?”

 

Jeremiah laughed – a joyous, honest laugh, not a wise chuckle – and he slapped James’ palm with his own. “A business man. Solid, baby. Most of the white cats come in for a brother’s advice and think it’s free; hey man, slavery’s _over_. I charge a thousand a day, plus expenses.”

 

The Prince had made sure to bring a store of treasure with him, should bribery be required on his quest. He now dug into a laden saddlebag and poured diamond jewelry into the man’s cupped hands. “This should cover your first two weeks.”

 

The stable-boy immediately began donning the rings and watches and bracelets. “Oh baby, you are a _prince_.”

 

“Do you require anything else, Jerry? May I call you Jerry?”

 

“Jerry will do, Jimmy. Jimmy okay with you?”

 

“Agreed.” James had never liked that nickname, but it was a good idea to keep one’s uncanny associates happy. And turnabout was fair play.

 

“Well, Jimmy baby, I got three conditions if I’m to be your brother with the mojo. I get paid. I get laid. And I don’t die.[12] You got the first one before I could mention it, which is a _very_ good sign.”

 

James blinked and then laughed. “I’d like those last two myself, Jerry. I’ll do my best to help you with number two, and I’ll defend your life with my own. Do you need a horse?”

 

Jerry patted the black stallion’s neck. “Hal says he’ll carry me too.”

 

James, who had not told Jerry his horse’s name, nodded in agreement.

 

“By the way,” Jerry said as he reholstered his Colt and gathered a few belongings, “you wouldn’t happen to know a fellow named Jackson, would you? Carl Jackson?”

 

James shook his head.

 

“Well that’s too bad. That cat killed my family when I was a boy, and if I ever run into him he’ll be sorry he did. I’ve been practicing with guns ever since, just so when I find him I can look that cat in the eye and say, ‘Hey, baby, the name is Jeremiah Carson. You set fire to my parents.’ Just so he knows why I killed him, you dig?” Jerry mounted Hal in one smooth move, hitching himself to the rear of the saddle to let James up.

 

They rode out of that street, Jerry sparkling with diamond jewelry and singing. James felt hope stir in his breast for the first time since Artemus had ridden out of his sight.

 

Jeremiah did indeed have “pipes,” which he used to entertain James (and possibly Hal) during their ride to the French Quarter. The stable boy had also brought his flute which he played beautifully; with a pang James remembered Artemus playing his violin in their train car.

 

Jeremiah taught the Prince a valuable lesson by day’s end without saying a word. James learned that no “decent” hotel in New Orleans allowed Negroes to stay in their rooms, even if they were accompanied by the King’s son; he was repeatedly offered stable-cots and alleyways for his “servant.” When the Prince scornfully turned his back on the third hotel and said “Find us a good place to sleep outside, Jerry,” the man's grin twinkled nearly as much as his jewelry.

 

They rode through the Quarter and down toward the delta until Jerry pointed to one house. It looked like all the others, but James nodded. After supper (purchased by James at a tavern for all three of them and carried away) they both managed to climb onto that balcony; it was full dark by then.

 

 “I’d never noticed that injustice before,” James said around a fried-oyster po'boy sandwich. Hal munched his bale of hay in the alley below. “I shall speak to the King about this!”

 

“Welcome to Jim Crow, my man,” Jerry said with just a touch of rancor, his beringed fingers wrapped around his own po’boy and glittering in the moonlight. “It’s bigger than both of us. But the thought’s appreciated.”[13]

 

The Prince lay down in the bedroll next to Jerry; he was accustomed to sleeping rough during his patrols. Jerry’s diamond jewelry poked James here and there, but it didn’t stop him from going to sleep.

 

A whinny woke the Prince to stare into the twin barrels of a 12-gauge shotgun. A dark-haired woman held it on him. “Mister, you have exactly 10 seconds to tell me why you’re on MY balcony!” she snapped.

 

The Prince was on his feet in three seconds, hands up before the muzzle pointing to him. He put on his best manners to speak to the fierce-looking youngish woman. “Necessity, ma’am, I assure you. My associate and I could not find proper lodging the night before.”

 

“Frank, man, you are embarrassing me,” Jerry murmured in his sleep.[14]

 

Instantly the Prince had his Colt out and he fired, striking the stock of the shotgun and disabling the firing mechanism. The woman yelped, and in the same second James had both hands around the gun barrels and yanked the now-useless shotgun away from the woman.

 

He stared into the mouth of another Colt, just as the woman’s dress hiked back down from what had been a hidden holster in her bustle. Her hand was singed from the nearness of his shot, but unharmed; her finger was steady on the trigger. “The Billyhart defense[15],” she said to James, smiling a little. She fired and smacked the stock of the shotgun so hard the whole thing spun out of James’ hands and went clattering to the street below, accompanied by angry yells from neighbors about the noise; gunfire was not a foreign sound around here, clearly. “You’re good,” she added, ignoring the yells and curses.

 

“So are you!” said the Prince, smiling in genuine pleasure. He liked having an equally-matched opponent, regardless of gender. He tightened his bicep and his sleeve Derringer sprang into his hand, and in the next half-second the barrel was under her chin as his hand pushed her gun-hand away and up. He looked into her wide eyes. “I don’t want to kill you, my friend and I just want to –”

 

She had a free hand. She grabbed and yanked.

 

When James came to, his groin was still throbbing with pain and his hands were tied in front of him with a black silk hair-ribbon. He struggled to sit up, groaning in pain; a small arsenal piled before him showed that he’d been thoroughly frisked and all but disarmed.

 

The woman now faced him with a flintlock revolver in her left hand and a saber in the other, the bright gleam on the edge proving that the sword was shaving-sharp. “Answer me, dammit!” she snapped. “Or I don’t yank ‘em this time, I cut ‘em off!” She swished the saber back and forth quickly, twice. “Why are you HERE!”

 

Jerry was still in the bedroll, just starting to awaken. “Dean, baby, you shouldn’t have,” he mumbled.[16]

 

“I’m sorry we frightened you,” James continued, an old hand at conversing with people whilst bound and ostensibly at their mercy. “We will be happy to pay you for the use of your balcony as a night-roost and then leave immediately, Miss...”

 

“Fortune.”

 

“Miss Fortune.”[17] The Prince refused to smile. “We came to New Orleans looking for a friend of mine. Artemus has been missing ever since the wizard Vautrain –”

 

The pistol dropped a fraction. Miss Fortune’s eyes widened. “Artemus _Gordon_? He’s missing? A wizard’s involved?” Her lip quivered.

 

James blinked at this reaction; Fortune had been nothing but steely determination when facing an armed opponent, but this news had pierced her. _Gordon_. Artemus’ last name was Gordon? How could he not know that?

 

“Is the man you’re looking for so high,” Fortune said rapidly, holding the saber at his vassal’s approximate height, “black curly hair, gorgeous brown eyes? A smile like a sunrise? Smarter than a dictionary? Plays every musical instrument ever made? Dances like a dream? Doesn’t like to fight, but fights meaner than a pack of wolverines when he’s defending you?”

 

“That’s me, madam,” Jerry murmured, stirring awake and blinking. “How may I help you?”

 

“He...” The Prince stammered. “He...he does have black curly hair and brown eyes. He plays the violin.” Did he truly not know his Artemus – his vassal? “And...and he does fight fiercely.”

 

Tears filled Miss Fortune’s eyes. “Oh, Artie’s in trouble, I know it! It’s that work he does out West, isn’t it?” Her jaw set and she glared at James. Her saber came around and hovered between James’ eyes. “I’m coming with you, don’t you dare say I’m not! I know Artemus Gordon, almost as well as you do if you’re his friend.”

 

This was sudden. James shook his head, trying to clear it.

 

But Jerry sat up and smiled at the woman. “You’re one coo-coo chick, Lily baby,” he said. “Welcome to the Pack.”

 

“How did you know my name?” Miss Fortune gasped.

 

Jerry offered his hand. “It’s my job to know. Jeremiah Carson, M.N. This rude cat who forgot to give you his name is Prince James of the West.”

 

James looked down at the grinning Jerry, diamonds still sparkling all over him. “Are you sure she should join us?”

 

“Jimmy baby, did you hire me for your Magical Negro or not?” Jerry said, affronted. “This was the place we needed to sleep last night. We need all the Fortune we can get. She rides, we both walk.”

 

Miss Fortune turned and walked back into the house upon whose balcony James and Jeremiah had slept. “I have to get ready. Come in and have breakfast.”

 

James held out his still-bound wrists to Jerry. “Could you?”

 

* * *

 

“Aunt Jane, this is a really weird Western.”

 

“Isn’t it, though? But what do you expect when one of the guest stars is Sammy Davis Jr.?”

 

“But what about Artemus? The evil wizard?”

 

“We’re getting to them, I promise.”

 

* * *

 

Like any good defender, the Prince had canvassed Miss Fortune’s home upon his entrance and had not been surprised to see how heavily fortified her home was. In addition to the guns she had produced during her showdown on the balcony, and a wall full of firearms, weapons lay secreted in the strangest places: another saber in the umbrella stand, a hatchet among the carving and butcher knives in the kitchen, and small round iron grenades amid a display of fine china spheres on a vanity table.

 

This deceit and hidden ferocity was so very like Artemus that the Prince’s throat tightened. He didn’t understand why Artemus’ absence ached in him at all times like a missing tooth. He should only miss his vassal, his useful companion. Shouldn’t he? He was only coldly angry at a wicked man waylaying his associate and practicing his dark arts unhindered. Surely it was only that which made him tremble with anger.

 

He and Jerry ate while Lily Fortune filled a carpetbag from her armory and threw a shirtwaist or two atop the weapons. “Guns and swords won’t do much against a sorcerer with a man-eating house,” the Prince said.

 

“No, but they’ll do wonders against his hired boys,” Lily said. “Magicians won’t work for each other. They’re mostly in the homes north of here, past the cemetery. That’s where we’ll find the man-eating house.” Her hand clenched into a fist on a slim sword just before she drove it back into her umbrella handle. “Poor Artie’s in that awful place. Why? What does Vautrain want with those people he takes?”

 

“I don’t know,” the Prince said. “But we’re going to find out. How do you know Artemus?”

 

“Old school sweethearts,” Lily said. “We discovered that we weren’t made for each other and parted friends. He taught me a thing or two first.” She closed the bag with a snap and tucked her loaded Colt back into her bustle holster.

 

“Oh man, we have _got_ to get out of here,” Jerry said, jumping to his feet. “Hal’s going crazy outside!"

 

"Someone's trying to steal him?" James tore after Jeremiah.

 

"He's excited about seeing something. Someone." Jerry clattered down the stairs. "Who's Falstaff?"

 

Falstaff!

 

James tore past Jerry and flung the door open onto the street level. Together they broke out onto the street to find the stallion prancing and whinnying, yanking at his traces tied to a hitching post. Along the street, amid cabs and riders and walkers, a fat brown rump ambled down the street, away from them.

 

"We have to catch up to them! He has Artie's horse!" James yelled, undoing Hal's bridles. "If we ride now, fast, we'll..."

 

The rump stopped dead. The horse held still for a long pause, then it turned and began walking back toward them. It was indeed Falstaff, heedless of the man yanking on his reins and kicking and cursing him. The man was a sunburnt fellow in homespun with a straw hat and a scraggly beard, whose looks and foul Cajun-accented language were out of place on such a fine riding animal; he could not stop Falstaff from approaching them.

 

James turned and stared at Jeremiah – whose face was contorted in a grimace as he faced the returning horse. With open mouth, the Prince watched his partner's horse walk up to them as neat as you please, and stop before Jerry, nodding. "Good boy," Jerry said, smiling at the horse.

 

"Stupid bastard!" the man atop Falstaff yelled, raising a rope-whip over his head to lash the rump.

 

A shotgun blast took off the quirt just atop the man's hand. Lily stood in the doorway, smoke trailing from one barrel of the firearm in her hands. The man turned ashen and his mouth froze open.

 

"Mister," James said, "you're going to tell me where you got that horse you were maltreating just now."

 

"Whoor you!" the man shouted at James. "I don't got tell yuh nuthin'!"

 

"Falstaff, sweetie," Jerry murmured, "pull this man's hat off his head with your teeth and stomp on it." Two seconds later he said "Good boy," again, and the man was babbling like a brook, his eyes white with terror at a Negro that could command animals and a lady who could shoot like a soldier.

 

Falstaff's was a painfully banal theft: the man had found the saddled, bridled gelding wandering by the riverbank not far from the cemetery north of town, and took it. (What the man was doing in the cemetery James did not want to know.) No doubt the Cajun had been going to sell the animal, tack and all, once he'd gotten a few uses out of it and before it would require feeding.

 

Immeasurably pleased at both companions he'd just acquired, James said, "You'll take us all to the very place you found this horse. Now, dismount, very carefully."

 

The horse thief dismounted, glaring at James.

 

"This is why you shouldn't take something that doesn't belong to you," said James, and he pushed a rough spot on a stirrup-strap. The entire saddle exploded. Falstaff, getting a carrot and an ear-scratch from Jerry, didn't even blink. The thief fainted.

 

"That's Artie's horse, all right," Lily said.

 

Only then did the Prince realize that he'd said "Artie" in the panic of finding Falstaff, and not "Artemus." _Artie. Artemus. My vassal. I swear I will find you and free you, though every evil wizard in the West try to stop me!_ It was surely only his imagination that his heart beat a little faster.

 

***

 

Guided by the shaking thief, the search party headed north their way to the cemetery, and to the riverbank field beyond it. They could see one or two of the fine homes along the river, beautiful and pastoral-looking. But Jerry stared at them with pain in his one eye and his mouth in a grim line; for the first time, James realized that a child of slaves would not look at these homes the same way a white man would[18].

 

"Th- this is where I found 'im," Leland stammered – for Leland was the horse-thief's name. "Now let me go!"

 

"Of course, Leland," Jerry said. "Thank you for giving our brother Falstaff back to us. Just let us walk you back home, all right?"

 

Leland snapped, "I don't need no goddamn ni–" No other sound came out of his mouth.

 

"His name is Jeremiah," James said courteously, and released Leland's throat, "and you will refrain from using that vulgar word in our presence. You were saying?"

 

Leland rubbed his throat and snarled, "I don't need nobody walkin' me back!" His pale eyes shifted to the cemetery entrance and back.

 

The Prince had his answer, and though disgusted was not surprised. "Of course you don't want us walking you back. You live in one of the tombs."

 

* * *

 

"Gross!"

 

"He's hardly the only one, hon. Because New Orleans is under sea level, graves fill up with water as fast as they dig them. So the cemetaries are full of above-ground tombs. Some of them are easily big enough for a homeless man to sleep in. And New Orleans is full of desperately poor people even today."

 

* * *

 

"Why you wanna see my sleepin' place!" Leland snapped. "I give yer horse back and I done what you said, now lemme alone!"

 

"I just have a feeling," Jeremiah said. "All of us."

 

"Oh, must we go in there?" Lily said with disgust. "That place is probably crawling with thieves and cut-throats!" As she said the words, a glow of excitement lit up her dark eyes; she patted her holstered pistol. "Forget what I said – I'm in!"

 

The Prince nodded. Jeremiah was right to have a feeling. Evil wizards used dark magic. Dark magic made extensive use of necromancy – the use and abuse of dead bodies, and all things related to death. He was sure to find clues that led to the wizards of the coast, and to the one in the man-eating house.

 

No horses were allowed in the cemetery. Jeremiah put his head together with Hal and Falstaff, and the stablemates headed to the riverside field to wait. James noticed that the two beasts nuzzled each other a great deal, nipping at each other's necks and whickering like soft chuckles; his own coldness to Artemus – Artie – burned in him at the sight of this equine affection between their mounts[19].

 

Leland, grumbling and complaining (but without the use of the vulgar word), walked to the cemetery entrance and passed through, closely followed by the three humans. Weapons out, eyes alert, they walked the narrow paths between the granite and marble edifices; this was a very good place for a murderous ambush. A few other ragged men leaned against the structures or peered from small two-coffin mausolea at the intruders, glaring at Jerry and goggling at Lily.

 

Leland stopped before one two-tomb structure; this one's doorway was a wrought-iron gate, the lock long since smashed and removed. The lintel above the entrance featured sculpted angels bearing a banner with the carved motto _Verus amor fortior est quam tempus_. "Something about the strength of truth and time, I think," said Lily. "My Latin's terrible."

 

"It's a sentiment about their love being stronger than the pull of age," said the Prince.

 

Lily peered into the dark structure. It was past mid-afternoon and the shadows didn't help. "Who were they?"

 

"Let's find out," said James, and stepped across the threshold. Jeremiah and Lily followed close after.

 

The gate slammed shut with a clang, making them all jump. Then the entire structure descended like a giant dumbwaiter, plunging them into the darkness of a stone shaft.

 

"Your instincts were right on the money, Jerry," was all the Prince said, striking a match to illuminate the three living and two deceased inhabitants of the small stone house. "This is not typical tomb behavior."

 

"Hey, cat, it's why I charge the big bucks," Jerry said modestly.

 

Lily rattled the iron gate that would not open, and stared down a corridor before them as they thumped to the bottom of the shaft. Now the structure moved along that corridor under no visible impetus. "What do you say to an evil wizard?" she asked nervously.

 

James looked at his drawn ivory-handled Colt. "I'll think of something."

 

James' match was the only light, and when it went out he did not light another. They waited, feeling the tomb shift and change directions several times. Finally, after what seemed like a half-hour, it stopped. The gate unlocked with a clang, and gaslights flared up on either side of another doorway carved in the rock, its doorway leading to upward stone steps.

 

"Do the steps leading up to that doorway look like they're shaped like a large tongue?" Jerry asked.

 

"And doesn't that top lintel look like a row of teeth?" Lily added.

 

James nodded at the doorway shaped like a hungry mouth. "This must be the man-eating house." Without looking behind him or hesitating he strode into the aperture and made his way upwards, gun drawn. He heard his companions on the stairs behind him.

 

"Prince James of the West," a deep, amused voice said at the top of the stairs where golden light shone out and gentle music played. "Do come in and accept my humble hospitality – you and your charming companions." ("I'm not _that_ charming," Lily Fortune whispered, and Jerry whispered back, "I think he's just being polite.")

 

The Prince was all cold law-keeper by the time he reached the top, and beheld the beautifully-decorated parlor abutting the stairway. His eyes were not for the rich hangings nor the fine paintings and carvings; he saw only the silver-haired man with a neat goatee perched on a wheeled chair, his legs covered with a tartan blanket. Beside him was a pretty young woman with a worried look on her face.

 

"Prince James, you and your party are most welcome to have some tea," the man in the chair said in the same genteel tone. "My niece Antoinette shall entertain you on the piano."

 

"Vautrain," James said, not as a question, and when the man in the chair bowed mockingly his suspicions were answered. "I have not come for tea." Now, now he had to fight to hide his pain and worry, when it had not been a concern before. "I am indeed Prince James of the West, the fighting son of King Ulysses. This is Mr. Jeremiah Carson, and Miss Lily Fortune. I have come for my vassal, Artemus Gordon, whom you unlawfully took away by force."

 

"Of course, of course," Vautrain said just as smoothly. "But first things first, good Prince. Tea, and a moment of your time whilst I offer you a business proposition. We will all get what we want eventually."

 

The Prince stayed as cold-blooded as in the heart of battle; he looked past his twinging, newborn feelings for his vassal and past his fury at this villain for holding a good man captive. "Agreed." But when he turned to look at Jerry and Lily, his eyes let them know that this tea was not to be trusted, not though their throats cried for thirst. Lily had the same angry look in her eyes – she was Artie's friend too – but she nodded slightly to show she understood James.

 

Over tea James and Vautrain made small talk about current events and popular theatrical pieces. But James, Jeremiah and Lily were all so sly and clever that neither Vautrain nor his niece noticed that they poured their tea into potted plants and stowed biscuits and crumpets under seat cushions and up sleeves. Not a crumb nor a drop passed their lips.

 

When tea was over (rather, when Vautrain and his niece finished their share and James' group had disposed of theirs), only then did Vautrain say, "And now, my Prince, I have a business proposition for you."

 

"You have an unjustly-detained man to release first," James said coldly. Jerry nodded and Lily patted her bustle. Antoinette resumed her piano-bench.

 

Vautrain continued as if he did not hear. "Do you remember, perchance, a certain great battle in Vicksburg during the last war? You were there, Prince James."

 

"I remember," said the Prince. "I saved a man from dying..." Then he stared at Vautrain.

 

"Yes," Vautrain hissed. "I was black-haired and clean-shaven then, young and vital – but I was the man you rescued. You tied off my crushed legs so I would not bleed to death – and I lost them both because of it!" He pulled back the blanket to show the tied-off grey trousers covering mid-thigh stumps. Antoinette winced and her piano-playing faltered.

 

"So you're legless," Jerry said. "You're also _alive_. And you've got a pretty girl to push you around in your chair. _And_ you're white. And you have a place to live and enough to eat. What are you complaining about?"

 

"My business proposition is simple," Vautrain continued heedless. "You, Prince, will go up to my attic, and you will get my legs back since you took them."

 

"Coo-coo, baby," Jerry muttered. Lily stuck her tongue in her cheek. The Prince only stared at the sorcerer babbling like a madman.

 

"I have powerful magic, Prince James," said Vautrain. He glared at a cold candelabrum, and all three of its candles flared up with fire.

 

"Good parlor trick," said Jerry. He glared at the candles, and all three went out without so much as a whisp of smoke. "Can you pull rabbits from your hat too?"

 

"Ah. A Magical Negro, I see," Vautrain said, and Jerry bowed mockingly. "Very impressive. But can you travel through time, Mr. Carson?"

 

...Blah blah blah, warp in the very fabric of time that I alone control, blah blah in the attic, blah.

 

* * *

 

"Auntie Jane, that can't be in the story!"

 

"Do you really want a 10-page faux-scientific explanation for why Vautrain the evil magician has a time portal in his attic?"

 

"No."

 

"Let's just say, then, that Vautrain has a time portal in his attic and keep going."

 

* * *

 

"So that is why those who enter your doorways do not come back," said the Prince. "You send them through your attic doorway and they are lost forever."

 

"Only on my whim, I assure you, Prince," Vautrain said with a smile. "If it suits my purposes, I can indeed have someone called back. Or send someone else to call him back."

 

The Prince understood, and anger filled him with ice.

 

"Yes, Highness. Artemus Gordon is in that portal, somewhere in time. You, Prince James, must go up to the attic and enter the portal. Go find Mr. Gordon and bring him back. That will convince you that I am no madman, and you will help me regain my legs at that battle so many years ago once we have traveled there together." Vautrain smiled. "Then you may take Mr. Gordon away from my house."

 

"All that fancy pile of lies just means you've got poor Artie tied up in your attic!" Lily snapped. "I've heard enough, we're getting him out of there. Jeremiah?"

 

"I think not," said Vautrain suavely, and rang a bell.

 

"I think so," Jerry said, and both he and Lilly had their shooting irons trained on Vautrain and Annette (still valiantly playing the piano despite her wide-eyed stare at the guns).

 

Vautrain shook his head, then glared at them. The guns vanished, all of them. James felt the instant absence in his own hidden holsters, sleeve spring, and ankle-strap. Lily shuddered, patting her bustle once again.

 

The quiet parlor filled with a massive human being, a giant of a man. "Voltaire," Vautrain said with a gentle smile, "please take Mr. Carson and Miss Fortune to their ... guest quarters." He chuckled quietly.

 

The giant Voltaire stared at the magician. His brow furrowed. "Guest...quarters? I wasn't asked to air out any of the guest– "

 

"The dungeon, you idiot!" Vautrain snapped, "take them to the dungeon! I was being ironic!"

 

Voltaire smiled and nodded, and took hold of Jerry and Lily, walking them away despite their yelling and kicking.

 

Vautrain turned and smiled at James. "Well, James of the West? Do we have a deal?"

 

"I find Artemus Gordon alive and unharmed," James said, and now the core of him burned like a bonfire. "Only then will I agree to assist you." He stood up without further fanfare and walked up the stairs. Since he was in a magic house, he did not touch anything save the railing; not the wall paintings that seemed to watch him, not the sculptures that glowed or subtly moved, not the dark patterns on the wallpaper that slithered as he passed them by.

 

Up another flight, around the landing, and a crude pull-down wooden stairway into the attic. He stepped through the trap door, took one step into the darkness, and was surrounded by light and mist.

 

He stepped through the mist and light, and he walked on grass. He was at the edge of a cluster of trees that ended on great rolling grassy fields and hills, scattered here and there with more trees.

 

He was not alone.

 

"God give good den, sir!" called the cheery voice of a dwarf dressed in a black doublet and a ruffled collar, who walked upon a road at the bottom of the hillock James stood upon. "My name is Michael Sinamor, called Little Michael. I come on the business of her most gracious Majesty, good Queen Bess. I bring a message to John Maitland. Know you where he abides?"

 

James stared at this avatar of an old enemy from his patrols. This was not a parlor trick.

 

***

 

Meanwhile Jeremiah and Lily were dragged downstairs by the ironically-challenged Voltaire, into what looked like the wine cellar of the house. Both were tossed into a section of the room separated by floor-to-ceiling iron bars and a door which Voltaire locked; no doubt the site where Vautrain had once kept his rarest vintages. Voltaire turned his back on both captives, folded his arms, and stared straight ahead into the darkness of the cellar.

 

"Now how are we supposed to find Artie locked up like this?" Lily said unhappily. "We need to get out of here!"

 

"You stay," Voltaire said without turning around. "I stay. We all stay."

 

"And it's not like we're armed any more," Lily said unhappily. "Shoot." But a warm thin hand, dripping with diamond jewelry, patted her hand and got her attention. She turned to look, and saw Jeremiah put a beringed finger to his lips. He mimed a pocket watch with one hand, and circled the imaginary face with a finger once. _Wait. Wait one hour_. He winked at her with his false eye. Lily nodded, but said "Shoot!" and kicked the bars so her sudden acquiescence wouldn't make Voltaire suspect.

 

Voltaire showed no signs of leaving. He looked round at them once in a while and glared.

 

"There's no need to cry, Miss Fortune," Jeremiah said.

 

"I'm not crying," Lily said. "I was going to ask why _you_ were crying."

 

They heard it together this time – a deep, heartbroken woman's sobbing. It seemed to come from the very walls of their prison.

 

"Do you have another prisoner here besides Artie, you – you Leviathan?" Lily snapped. "Some poor woman?"

 

"No others," came the answer from the unironical Voltaire.

 

"Don't you _hear_ that? How can you just ignore that poor woman?"

 

"It's the house," Voltaire said without turning around. "Woman's ghost in the walls. Keeps people from leaving."

 

The sobbing was heartbreaking. And now blood-chilling. "A ghost?" Lily whispered.

 

Jerry immediately walked to the wall and put his head to the wall, shaking as if overcome with grief.

 

So much for Vautrain's expressions of good faith to James – even if this weird time-stuff worked out, the house wouldn't let them go anyway. Lily remembered an old Mexican folktale of a sobbing female ghost, one who'd killed her child, who turns into a dreadful monster. How do you pacify a _llorona_?

 

Now the time in prison was nerve-wracking. Lily paced, chewing her nails in a way that would have gotten her hands slapped by her mother or Miss Flutterham. The sobbing walls, the dread that filled her at the sound and wondering what to do about the ghost – and going mad with worry about what poor Artie had gotten himself stuck into. If that prissy Prince couldn't save him...

 

" _Mi pobrecita,_ " Jerry whispered to the wall. Tears streamed from both eyes, even the dead one. " _Señora Diaz, que lastima!"_ He pulled away, tears still streaming. The soft, heart-broken sobbing continued.

 

What was going on...?

 

Jerry tapped Lily's hand again. She watched Jeremiah, who watched Voltaire. He waited till the behemoth turned to glare behind them, then turn round to keep watch. He drew a deep breath; his brow furrowed, his mouth opened.

 

"Voltaire!" Vautrain's voice called down the basement stairs from the open doorway above. The giant's head swiveled to look up the stairs toward the sound of his master. "Come up here at once!"

 

Voltaire left without a backward look and walked up the stairs.

 

Jerry finished throwing his altered voice, and grinned at Lily when they were alone. "Now to start work on these bars. And we keep distracting that mountain one bar at a time if we need..."

 

Click. The iron door opened, and Lily withdrew her hairpin from the lock. "The one useful thing I learned from Miss Flutterham's School for Young Ladies of Good Breeding. Let's go find James and Artie."

 

"Baby," Jeremiah said, grinning, "you _are_ one coo-coo chick."

 

"Pshaw!" But Lily turned pink.

 

They headed up the stairs themselves, past the sobbing walls.

 

***

 

Where there were people, there Artemus would be. Go where he would find other people.

 

The Prince walked with the dwarf Little Michael. "Why do you stare at me?" he asked.

 

"'Struth, I'm not accustomed to seeing a noble wearing such clothing," said the dwarf. "John Maitland is not a forgiving man, and may take your garb as further insult."

 

Oh. Well, his clothes were outlandish for Elizabethan times. As long as he kept his distance from John Maitland he should be...

 

The road they walked curved upward along the hill, and suddenly revealed a small cluster of mounted men in the lee of the hill, waiting, and dressed as if for a Shakespeare play. Elizabethan era, then. They glared at him. Robbers?

 

James approached them, looking at them. He had questions to ask, he wanted to know if they'd seen...

 

One handsomely-dressed man dismounted his horse and walked to James. "You cannot even dress properly for a duel!" he snapped.

 

The man's words meant nothing to James, for his heart kicked in his chest and pounded so hard he almost felt sick. "Artemus!" he shouted, joy filling him. This man was indeed his vassal in doublet and ruff, and he was alive and well. "I've found you!" He strode forward – and was brought up by the tip of a vicious-looking sword aimed directly at his chest and whipped from Artemus' scabbard.

 

Artemus glared at James with no recognition – not even a veiled look of acknowledgement as he pretended not to know him, a ruse both had used during their work for so long. "Is this another insult, sirrah?" he snapped. "I thought you had ears to hear when I told you my name was John Maitland, when you foully insulted my company last night after our performance!"

 

Cold washed over the Prince, colder than he'd ever felt inside. "You don't know me," said the Prince, and the pain was greater than he'd thought possible.

 

"I had been fortunate in that fate until last night," Artemus/Maitland said coldly. "No man, and no woman save our good Queen, God save her, may say a cross word about the Rose players and not pay for those words!"

 

This man ran an acting troupe? Perhaps...perhaps this wasn't Artie, but a twin with his face from this time – and one who'd been insulted by his own time twin. He wanted to fight a duel with him.

 

"If I said anything that insulted you or your players last night," James said immediately, "then I most humbly beg your pardon. It would pain me beyond measure to fight you."

 

"Pardon refused, damn you!" Artemus snapped. "You saw no need to apologize last night, when you were in your cups and sure you knew which end of a sword to hold. Now it's only your cowardice and inability to fight that makes apology to me. Since I am the injured party, I have chosen the weapons. You and your second may prepare over there."

 

Second? James looked down at Little Michael. "This man is not my second."

 

The dwarf stepped forward. "A message from her most gracious Majesty–"

 

"After this duel, good sir," Artemus/Maitland said courteously, and smiled the charming smile that pulled at James' heart all the more for the rancor with which he himself was now regarded by his vassal – his friend. Was this a cruel trick of Vautrain's? "Let me deal with a little unwanted baggage, and then I shall be your most humble servant."

 

"Of course," Little Michael said with a smile. "There are times when even a civilized gentleman must run amok."

 

Artemus turned his smile to one of the other men. "Charles, would you do me the favor of serving as this churl's second? Bring him his weapons."

 

One of the other men walked to James, and opened a long box. It held a pair of swords – a long and a short sword, of the type used by Elizabethan gentlemen. Swords. So this was some vicious game by Vautrain to kill him. James was better with a sword than Artemus – but Artemus fought with no recognition of his Prince...his friend.  How could he himself fight unto death against this man for whom he'd searched for days, and whose absence had been like the removal of a vital organ within him?

 

Artemus – John Maitland – faced the Prince, armed and cold-faced, the way he'd always looked when facing their enemies.

 

"Sir, please," James said, pierced with fear and pain to see that look directed at himself. "I do not wish to fight you. I wish neither of us to die because of my boorishness yesterday. Please let me know how I may –"

 

He only just deflected his opponent's lunge, and not without losing a button off his jacket.

 

"Coward," Artemus snarled, panting in rage rather than exhaustion. "The only thing you can do to appease me is to die like a gentleman, since you can't live like one!" Again he came at James.

 

The Prince fended off the next few blows and strikes, but he knew in his heart that he was being toyed with. Soon Artemus would produce one of his feints, he'd catch it a split-second too late, and ...what did happen if one died in this time-portal of Vautrain's?

 

A pistol-shot at close range brought noise and the stink of a gunpowder cloud. Both men jumped and stopped their duel, and turned in time to see Charles fall to the ground, red blossoming from his chest.

 

The dwarf held the pistol. Three other men appeared atop the hill, armed with similar shot and dressed in ragged homespun. "There are some advantages of being born as a cruel trick of the Almighty," Little Michael said with a smile at the horrified looks of the dueling party and James. "It is so easy to believe that a dwarf in fine clothing is a royal plaything, that no one worries at how close he gets to his target!"

 

Fool, oh fool twice and thrice, James thought to himself. This avatar might not be Miguelito himself, but he surely bore the same felonious bent of his megalomaniacal twin.

 

"You..." Maitland/Artemus snarled, all his rage turned against this killer. "Foul cutpurse! To speak our Queen's name under such falsity is treason, you're headless for that!"

 

"Headless? You're landless, John Maitland," sneered Little Michael. "Sign over your estate to Michael Sinamor and flee to France, unless you want another of your dear friends dead for your stubbornness."

 

"So drop your weapons," added a henchman, waving his pistol.

 

"And you may as well hand over your purses," said another, grinning.

 

Four of them, single-shot pistols, one already discharged. James automatically shot a look at Artemus they'd exchanged under fire so many times in the West – and found the answering look. The plan was made and set up without a word, and both men knew their parts. _He knows me_ , James exulted, then there was only to do.

 

The Prince bent down to leave his sword, and clicked his boots together. He kicked out at the man before him, and the knife he'd sprung from his boot-toe went into the stomach. The man doubled over, mortally wounded, and James kicked the pistol away. Another man staggered back, Artemus' flung short-sword through his throat, the pistol firing in the air. Two, and one removed. The dwarf had fled back the way they'd come, his plan failed, they'd hunt the coward down once this rabble was –

 

"James!"   
  
The Prince caught the pistol Artie tossed to him and whirled on the last henchman raising up for a clear shot; he fired dead center. The man convulsed and the last pistol went off. But this shot ended with a meaty sound and a cry of pain in a voice he knew.

 

_No!_

 

James whirled away from the dead man, in time to see Artemus slump to his knees, covered in blood, and sink to the ground.

 

"Artie! Artie!" He ran to the man's side, oh Jesus, the blood, there was nothing he could–

 

Brown eyes – beautiful brown eyes – fluttered open and looked up at him. "I...know your face," Artemus whispered, and choked; blood came out of his mouth.

 

"It's Jim, Artie, James, I've come for you, I've looked for you so long..." He'd never used "Jim" before, ever. The blood ran from under his pressed hands, the only hot thing in the man that was growing cold beneath him. He felt as if every sword in this clearing had been thrust through his heart.

 

"We've done this...before...haven't we?" Recognition in those brown eyes, growing cloudy.

 

"And we will again," James whispered, forcing both hands down on top of the pulsing hole in Artie's chest. "It's not over yet, I've come too far to find you–" Grief closed his throat.

 

"James," Artie gasped through blue lips. "J- Jim." The eyes cleared just a little, and a light shone in them that had always been there.

 

"Don't go, Artie, please don't go." James' heart was a live coal radiating a pain he would never survive. "Stay with me. Stay with me!"

 

A smile trembled on the blue lips. "As...you...wish," Artemus whispered. Then the eyes rolled up, and blood no longer pulsed from the bullet hole.

 

Jim collapsed beside the body as if shot himself, so overwhelmed he could not move nor think. He had found Artemus Gordon at long last. He'd finally understood that what he felt for him was not loyalty, not friendship, but love – true love. And now Artemus Gordon was dead.

 

"Come with us," one of the surviving duellists said, and took James' arm. The Prince snarled and pulled his arm away. But seconds later a pistol-click and the cold mouth of a muzzle against the back of his head drew him from his grief.

 

"You will come with us," the man said coldly. The other of the supernumeraries pulled James' hands behind his back and bound them, finding no resistance. "Little Michael gave us our orders."

 

Together the two men dragged the bound James away from Artemus' dead body and headed back toward the nearest tree-cluster.

 

* * *

 

"Auntie Jane."

 

"Yes, sweetie?"

 

"Artie's not – not really dead, is he? He's just faking, right? One of his tricks?"

 

"Oh he's dead, dear. Shot in the heart – even today that's instantly fatal."

 

"But. But it's not _fair_. The Prince looked for him, and did everything to find him! He, he finally realized that–"

  
"Here, dear. Blow. ...Ah, that's the cruellest lesson to learn in life, honey. That 'fair' is a made-up idea, and everything out there just  happens. We try to give it a pattern, a meaning, because that's what humans do."

 

"B-but this is a s-s-story! Stories are s-supposed to make sense!"

 

"Wait till I tell you the one about everybody walking into paintings, or getting really small, or poisoning everybody in the world with ducks–"

 

"No, don't! I don't care any more! Why t-tell me this story if it's g-gonna end up like this?"

 

"End up? Dear, the story's not over yet. We're dealing with magic, and time travel, and true love. I ask you to be brave, and to hold on.

 

"..." Sniff.

 

"May I continue?"

 

"...Okay."

 

* * *

 

James stared at the grinning dwarf in Elizabethan garb before him; he reached for his cold and callous self, his pride at doing his work well, his scorn for anyone who needed anyone else in their life. He needed to be strong, to fight this enemy, to make him pay for the death in the lee of the hill. His hands were still bound behind him, and his captors still flanked him.

 

"You are far from your territory, Prince James," Little Michael said. "It was most discourteous of you to interfere with my attempt to acquire a little land."

 

Miguelito.

 

He stared at the two henchmen and back at Sinamor. "Do they know about the attic door?" he said bitterly.

 

"Perhaps. They certainly know that the gold I paid them is well worth ignoring any mad babble out of my mouth about changing history and walking into the past by ascending a flight of stairs," Miguelito said with a smile.

 

James wanted to be strong, ice-cold, completely impervious. But all that came out of his mouth was "Why?"

 

"Because, Highness, I will finally have my justice!" the dwarf shouted. "Our mutual friend in the man-eating house has promised me a walk through the past to change enough things so that California will finally be mine, as it should be!" He preened. "In return, I may have given Vautrain enough information about your link to your redoubtable companion to give him a hold on you. 'Take the one and the other will follow,' I said, and described both of you perfectly; he only needed his opportunity." His grin became even wider, more repulsive. "And the crowning touch is that I finally have my revenge on you, Prince James of the West, for every time you have stopped me!"

 

"You are dead," James said.

 

"You first," Miguelito said, grinning. Then his face changed into a bestial snarl. "You didn't see it, but everyone else could! Cut one and the other bleeds. Stab one and the other cries out. Shoot one and the other dies. True love; the rarest thing in the world. I have never had love in all my life – not from parents, nor lovers; I have spent my _life_ loveless. You had it, in your hands – true love – and you threw it away like garbage! That is why you hate so; it's not me you hate, it's yourself!"

 

James lunged at Miguelito and was felled by a blow from a henchman.

 

"Bring him along," Miguelito said, and turned and walked through the woods. The henchmen dragged their nearly-insensate captive over the forest floor. "Back to our mutual friend, my dear Prince."

 

***

 

Jeremiah and Lily made it up the stairs, but the parlor loomed between them and the stairs to the attic. Vautrain was snapping at Voltaire, who told him he'd heard his command.

 

They waited till the giant's movements blocked the wizard's line of sight for just a second. _Now_ , Lily nodded. They broke for cover and tore for the stairs.

 

"Stop! Voltaire, stop them!" Vautrain roared. Voltaire immediately whirled and followed.

 

 _Oh please be clumsy and slow, you big oaf!_  
 

Clumsy, but not slow.

 

They tore up both flights of stairs, and Lily yelled when Voltaire caught her by the foot. "Go!" she screamed, and Jerry ran up the attic steps, while she whirled and kicked in mid-air. Voltaire dropped her, then dropped to the ground like a stone pillar, groaning in agony; Lily raced the stairs, missing a shoe. Another valuable lesson from the school for decent ladies. Vautrain yelled in disbelief as she ran into white light.

 

"Well, I'll be hog-tied," was all Lily could say when she stood upon the grassy hill near the forest edge. "The old charlatan was telling the truth."

 

Jerry looked around him in wonder and joy. "Feel the life here! The birds, the animals, the wind, the very trees! Smell the growing things! This is a real forest! Real meadows!"

 

Lily grimaced as her stockinged foot stepped in something wet. "You're right. So where are they?"

 

"Birds...terrified..." Jerry murmured. "Loud noises down in the hills, there." He indicated the road ahead. "The horses... hiding. Blood, stink, thunder."

 

"That sounds like Prince James at work, all right," Lily said, but her lips were pale. She broke off a couple of big sticks and handed one to Jerry. "Here, we don't have a pea-shooter between us." She used hers as a walking-cane to keep her shoeless foot away from the grassy covering, and then the dirt of the road, as much as she could.

 

They took the road up and over, into the lee of the hill. And when Lily saw the bodies she hoisted the stick and ran, heedless of her stocking, Jerry beside her.

 

Lily cried out in grief when she saw the bloodied corpse in Elizabethan clothing. "Artie! Oh, Artie!"

 

"Sweet Jesus, watch over him," Jerry whispered, and sank to his knees beside the weeping Miss Fortune, who held the corpse's cold hand in her own. "And so we've found him at last." He put his arm around Lily's shaking shoulders.

 

***

 

Miguelito emerged from the wooded cover at a big boulder beside a deep black pit in the ground. "Down, now," he snapped to his hirelings. The men dragged James down into what turned into attic stairs and then a house, and the forest was gone.

 

"Where are they!" shouted Vautrain from the parlor. "The others! Gordon!"

 

"Gordon belongs to the ages now," said the dwarf. "What others?"

 

"The Prince's companions! They fled into the portal not a half-hour ago! Gordon is _dead_?" Vautrain shrieked, furious. "I wanted him _alive_ , you bastard, he's no good to me dead!"

 

Half-hour ago? He'd been in the trees with Miguelito, or being dragged there. They'd missed each other... The Prince looked around and blinked. He was along, among his enemies. Truly alone, now, as he'd never been before in his life.

 

"Companions? I saw no one but my own people!" snapped Miguelito, gesturing at the men to drag James down to the parlor level. "How would I tell Prince James' companions from my own?"

 

"A Negro who lights candles with his brain, traveling with a white woman who carries weapons!" Vautrain smacked his armrests with both open hands. "You didn't _notice_ them in Tudor-era Salisbury?"

 

Companions? The Prince blinked, forcing himself to take in his surroundings and to be ready to act. His companions were alive, and he had no more need of their services now that Art– that his, his vassal, was dead. He had a duty to them, to keep them safe and let them go home free. His voice was flat, level; no rage, no grief, no begging. "Let me go to them, they've done nothing to you. Let me bring them back."

  
"They escaped!" Vautrain shouted angrily. "They ran into the time portal and tried to make my plan fail!"

 

"Your plan is failed." James looked at Vautrain, and something in his expression made the man in the wheelchair back away just a little, making Antoinette squawk when he ran over her toes. "We had an agreement. Artemus Gordon is dead; my part of the deal is destroyed."

 

Vautrain was so furious he and his chair shook. "You _will_ help me, you will! Or I make the portal vanish, and your two dear companions are lost forever in all of time and space!"

 

James laughed bitterly. "My only guarantee is that you will destroy my friends." Friends? Yes. Yes, they'd become friends. Friends he would lose in seconds, as he'd lost his love before ever telling him...

 

"I could have Voltaire pull your own legs off, Prince of the West," Vautrain snarled, "and leave you bound in the cellar for the rats to eat their fill. I would ask you, every 12 hours or so, if you've changed your mind.

 

"Or you could take the slim chance that I, unlike Miguelito–" and here Vautrain threw the stunned dwarf a look of rage and hatred, "know how to honor a promise, and respect a man of honor and duty. Someone who will indeed allow you to regain your companions in exchange for your cooperation with me."

 

He had a duty to his friends. The Prince's duty to his subjects. He had no other reason to live that he could see. He bowed his head, and let Voltaire cut his bonds. "I'm going now," he said.

 

"Of course," Vautrain said.

  
"Not without a guard!" snapped Miguelito.

 

"How many of your rabble did he take on and beat, idiot dwarf?" Vautrain said coldly. "I could send one man or a hundred, but James is the Fighting Prince of the West. They would be outwitted and outfought, eventually. No, what ties James to me is his word, and his duty to his people. Send your fools back with him, but I doubt they will guard much.

 

"Go, Highness," Vautrain said to the Prince. "But go quickly. This portal into this particular time I can only keep open for another six hours at the outside. After that all of you will be lost forever in limbo, where not even I can bring you back." Vautrain shook with anger. "Go! Go now!"

 

James turned to the stairs.

 

***

 

Lily smoothed the tumbled black curls of the body before her, and closed his eyes. She looked at Jerry.

 

"I'm a Magical Negro, not a miracle-worker," Jerry said gently. "I can't resurrect the dead."

 

Lily stood and kicked a rock. "What good is time-travel if you can't bring a good man back to life!" she cried.

 

"I know, baby, I know." Jerry patted her hand, and thanked her as she pulled him to his feet. It was the most natural thing in the world for them to hug each other tightly. "But we must confine ourselves to possibilities and let miracles alone."

 

"Come! Come!" croaked a voice. "Come! Come!"

 

Jerry and Lily banged their heads together whipping around to see who – what – had just said that.

 

A great black raven sat on the chest of one of the other dead men. "Come! Come!" It winked at them, and flapped off with big slow beats of his wings. "Come!" It flapped off again and landed at the base of another hill.

 

"Cawing, and nothing more," said Jerry.

 

"A trick of the light, to make his eye seem to wink," said Lily.

 

They looked at the body, then at the meadow, deserted save for the dead. They looked at the raven, who stood stock-still, looking at them.

 

Jerry bowed his head and furrowed his brow. Minutes later a saddled, riderless horse emerged over the hill and trotted toward them, its reins trailing to one side; no doubt a mount fled from the fight. Jerry caught his head and whispered thanks even as Lily visited the corpses and came back with pistols and swords for them both; she wobbled in Charles' blood-spattered boots, grimfaced. “I’ll pray extra hard for his soul to pay for these.”

 

Between the two of them, they got Artemus Gordon's body slung over the horse's back and strapped in place. The raven hopped and flapped up the hill a bit, still within their line of sight. Carrying their dead, they followed the harbinger away from the road and up another hill.

 

These downs covered the land, great rolling swells of green crowned here and there with trees or small homes; little farms dotted the land here and there. But the raven flew toward a particular hill not far away, crowned not with trees but with a cottage.

 

As they drew nearer, they saw that the cottage was made of stone and roofed with slate, and bore a great iron spike that stuck straight up from the roof like a steeple or a lightning rod. Loud zapping sounds came from within, and blinding-white flashes of light; the air smelled the way it did after a severe thunderstorm, even though it seemed mid-afternoon. The raven flapped onto the slate roof and cawed again.

 

“This is a strange-looking miracle,” Lily said.

 

“Most of them are.” Jerry pulled off one of his splendid diamond rings. "Here."

 

They walked up to the stone cottage emitting strange lights and frightening sounds, and Lily knocked on the door.

 

The noises and light stopped. "Go away!" snapped a woman's voice from inside.

 

"Ma'am, we followed a raven here! Can you help us?" Lily called.

 

"Stupid birds! Just throw a rock at 'em, that's what I do!"

 

"Ma'am, we need your help! We can pay!" Lily held up Jerry's ring.

 

The top part of the door opened. A sour-faced red-haired woman, who seemed to be in her mid-forties, glared at them. "What? What do you want to disturb a wronged woman for?"

 

"Ma'am–"

 

"It's _Doctor_ if you're to talk to me! _Doctor_ Faustina! I got better grades than those lunkhead men in medical school, but will they let a mere female practice in any respectable hospital?"

 

"Ma– Doctor Faustina, we're looking for a miracle," Lily said, and handed her Jerry's ring.

 

Dr. Faustina glared at the ring in her hand, then at them. "Miracle? What, another idiot woman's birthing her twelfth baby and they think it's evil to give her opium for the pain?" She half-turned with a heavy sigh. "Fine, I'll get my bag..."

 

"No, m– doctor, please! It’s – it’s Artie!” Lily cried. Tears started again in her eyes at how stupid she and Jerry were acting. Why hadn’t they just buried poor Artie in the clearing the way they should have, instead of manhandling his corpse on this insane game of follow-the-leader? “He’s dead!”

 

The woman turned right around, a light in her eyes. "Dead? Really dead?" Eagerness was in her voice.

 

Jerry turned the twitching horse around to show Artemus' bloody corpse.

 

Dr. Faustina clapped her hands "Oh, how wonderful! That's very different!" She turned back into the cottage and bellowed, "Miklos! We've got a cold one!"

 

A big man with a bigger mustache came over and stared at the body. His dark eyes lit up almost as much as Dr. Faustina's.

 

"Yes, yes!" Dr. Faustina said. "Put our guest on the table, and then start everything up!"

 

Miklos nodded eagerly, wordless, and opened the door. He wasn't as big as Voltaire, but he lifted Artemus' body off the horse without a single heavy breath; he shouldered past Faustina. She beamed fondly at the big man. "He can't speak a word, and he's simple as a child. That's the best kind of husband, don't you think? Do come in."

 

The cottage seemed to be a riot of wires and glass jars and tubes, and a constant sizzling sound one normally only heard in fits during thunderstorms; Lily's straggling hair lifted away from her head. A massive table made of stone filled most of the room, and it was here that Miklos laid out the body of Artemus Gordon. Faustina moved around the table, donning a heavy leather apron and gloves. She cut open the clothing at the bloodiest site and looked at the chest. "Ah, a bullet to the aorta. Clean and quick." She reached into the bullet-hole with a long-nosed curved tool like a pair of pliers, and after some fishing pulled out a gory lead ball. "Now I'd best siphon out that blood before it clots too badly, and sew up that vessel and funnel in some more blood before we begin. Miklos," she said over her shoulder as she fitted a thick rubber tube to the bullet hole, "please see to our other guests."

 

The big silent man pulled both queasy living people away from the operating table and sat them down on stone chairs. By the time Lily and Jerry had finished their tea (in startlingly fine china cups, the hot water from a steaming pan over a sizzling Leyden jar), Dr. Faustina had finished her surgery. Then - startling in a woman who had broken so many medical rules - she pulled out a porcelain flenser and bowl. "Could I please have some blood from each of you? This dear fellow hardly has a drop to his name."

 

They both came forward, fascinated and repelled by this practice that had been banished to the eighteenth-century. Dr. Faustina tied off their arms to bring up the vein. "This is the one form of bloodletting that I've found actually helps a patient," she explained as she slashed at their exposed vessels and caught the dark trickle in the bowl. "There, all done. Miklos? Your arm – this fellow could use some of your strength. And a bit of my cleverness, I think."

 

All four of them wound up bleeding into the bowl; the result was funneled into a clean glass jar which was then fitted with a tube and hollow needle. Dr. Faustina stuck the needle into Artemus' thigh, and withdrew the needle when the jar was empty.

 

"She's insane," Lily said, stroking the bandage over her arm. "But so are we to bring her a dead man for surgery."

 

"With what we've gone through?" Jerry grinned. "Going mad's the only thing that makes sense, Lily baby." She smiled ruefully and nodded.

 

Faustina now had Artemus' naked body covered with wires attached to metal cuffs at the wrists, ankles and forehead. She and Miklos donned dark-smoked glasses, and Miklos mimed to the other two to cover their eyes even as Faustina reached for a big metal switch on the wall.

 

Even with their eyes covered, bright lights flashed into their heads through their fingers – and sizzling, crackling thunderclaps filled their ears. It went on forever; minutes. Faustina's maniacal laugh turned into a shriek accompanied by a riot of breaking glass, and then everything went black.

 

Jerry and Lily opened their eyes and stared. The room stank of ozone and hot metal and smoke; smoke trailed from the shattered equipment and melted wires everywhere. Everything was destroyed.

 

Two silhouettes bent over the body on the table. Faustina shrieked again. "Look! Look! Look!"

 

Jerry and Lily crept forward, unaware that they gripped each other's hands tightly. They stared into the face of the dead man.

 

The eyes opened, and blinked.

 

Lily gasped, and crossed herself a dozen times. Jerry whispered something, and one tear fell.

 

Artemus opened his mouth. "Uggh–" The look in his eyes changed.

 

Faustina immediately tipped Artemus' head to the side, just as the no-longer-dead man vomited. "Understandable," she said calmly to her patient, gagging and coughing. "You've had a terrible shock."

 

***

 

Artie's body was gone. But a horse’s hooves led away from the carnage, accompanied by the treads of two people; one of the bodies at the site was in stocking-feet, and a grubby lady’s shoe lay nearby, the twin of the one Voltaire had seized. Had the two of them gone away into the hills to bury Artie? Why so far away? Perhaps others had taken Jerry and Lily captive and led them away – had they taken Artie's corpse for some horrific defilement as well?

 

James had taken a peripheral stock of the two henchmen who'd returned with him up the attic stairs. One had immediately fled into the woods, reciting the Lord's Prayer as fast as he could, repeatedly; clearly a man of this time. The other shadowed him, hand on his holster, eyes cold and hard as Miguelito's. James barely noticed the man. Nothing would stop him from doing his duty now, and then taking up his rôle as Vautrain's henchman for his next bout of time-travelling madness. And then...he doubted Vautrain wanted him to live.

 

 _I must remember,_ he told himself, never missing a step as he walked up the hill, tracking the horse and walkers, _I must remember to want to survive whatever happens – not to give up and bless him for ending my pain and grief with a bullet or Voltaire's hands or Miguelito's tortures. I lost true love before I ever called it what it was, out of cowardice and pride; Artemus is dead because of me. I deserve to live a long, loveless life of service as my punishment._

 

***

 

"We have to get back as quickly as we can, Artie!" Lily said. "I don't trust that legless geezer not to lock the door with us on the wrong side. Oh, I _do_ hope you've kept your riding seat. Remember when we'd go out riding in the buggy on a lovely afternoon? You, me, and my mother?"

 

Artemus blinked at her from atop the horse where they'd once again strapped him. He sat in the saddle now, slumped over the horse's neck; aside from his blinking he was utterly immobile.

 

"He was dead for a few hours," Dr. Faustina said, pouring a steaming-hot golden liquid into a wide-mouthed porcelain bottle before corking it. She now wore one of Jerry's glittering bracelets and two of his diamond rings. "Of course it'll take time for him to recover. The most important thing is that his brain's working again. Arm and leg movements and so forth will come back eventually. Here." She handed the jar to Lily. "Make sure he takes an eight-ounce dose of this every two hours."

 

"Elixir of Life?" Jerry said.

 

"Miklos' chicken soup." Miklos nodded, beaming.

 

"You've given us something we can never properly repay you for," Jerry said, and kissed Dr. Faustina on the cheek. "You're beautiful, baby, and I mean that."

 

"You've a touch of magic about you, Mr. Carson," she said, rubbing her cheek and smiling. "Are you sure you wouldn't like to stay, and learn how to add the wonders of science to your gift to make it even stronger?"

 

"No thanks," Jerry said. "Being a Magical Negro's all very well, but someday I'd like to be a real hero and win the girl and save the day, not help some white cat to do it."

 

"You're halfway there, Jeremiah," Lily said, and took his hand with a smile.

 

Jerry's eye shone brighter than his diamonds.

 

Dr. Faustina and Miklos beamed as the two came in for their first, proper kiss. Artemus blinked rapidly.

 

"Con _found_ it," Lily murmured, forehead pressed to Jerry's afterward. "No time to do aught but get back as fast as we can. Rotten old wizard!"

 

"I wouldn't say that, Lily baby," Jerry said softly. "We wouldn't ever have met each other without him."

 

Her grin matched his. "Then let's get back and thank the old buzzard properly! And tell the Prince Artie's back safe."

 

"Good luck dealing with the man-eating house, you three!" Dr. Faustina called, waving goodbye as they left. At Miklos' skeptical grunt, she said, "What's one more miracle?"

 

***

 

"Idiot!" screamed Vautrain.

 

"Meddler!" shouted Miguelito.

 

"I need him to get my legs!" Vautrain roared.

 

"I need my revenge!" screamed Miguelito.

 

The wizards' argument went in a similar vein for a long time, while a grit-teethed Antoinette kept playing the piano and Voltaire moodily caught magically-flung _objets d'art_ and put them back on mantels and tables.

 

Finally Antoinette brought both hands down on the keyboard with a jangling clang, stopping the shouting match immediately. "Stop it, you two!" she snapped to both startled men. "Just go back and get your legs, Uncle, with the Prince's help. _Then_ you can destroy him, Miguelito! What was so difficult about that!" She rolled her eyes, and went back to the minuet.

 

Vautrain and Miguelito looked at each other, dumbfounded, then sheepish.

 

"If you could _really_ plan big, Uncle," Antoinette said to her keyboard, "you wouldn't just go back and keep your legs from getting crushed. You could go back and keep your army from being crushed. Who knows? Maybe you could change the war's outcome. But what do I know?"

 

Again Vautrain and Miguelito exchanged looks. But now a light glowed in the dwarf's eyes. "Would you mind if I asked your niece to be my right-hand woman from now on?" Miguelito asked.

 

Voltaire pouted.

 

***

 

"S-S-"

 

Jerry looked up. "You can talk, Artemus?"

 

The man was still slumped over the horse's neck as if dead. He did not look well. On the other hand, he didn't look bad for a previously-dead man. "S-Señorrra Diazzz _,"_ he slurred.

Lily looked over, mouth open.   


Jerry tried to keep it in stride. They needed every scrap of advantage to prevail and get through this. "Artemus. You know about the _llorona_ in Vautrain's home – the one that keeps everyone from leaving the house. Did Vautrain tell you about her?"

 

"N-nno." Artemus' eyes looked away and back. Something in the look in his eyes...

 

Lily took a deep breath. Jerry said softly, "She told you herself. Introduced herself to you? Not long ago?"

 

"Yyess." A line of drool ran down Artemus' lower lip onto the saddle; Jerry used his handkerchief. "Ddeadd."

 

"You were both dead," Jerry said softly.

 

"Yess." No drool this time.

 

"Sweet Jesus," Lily murmured.

 

Jerry blinked. He had been a ghost. What had he seen in that undiscovered country? "We need to get past Mrs. Diaz if we're to leave the house. Do you know how to do that, now that you've talked to her?"

 

Artemus' head jerked down then up, once.

 

"You nodded!" Lily whooped. "You moved!"

 

"Work on the talking," Jerry said, "so you can tell us what we need to do."

 

Artie jerked his head in another nod. His eyes looked left and right, ahead. "J- Jjimm." The eyes were hungry.

 

"James? The Prince?" Lily said. "I don't know where he is right now. But I tell you one thing, Artemus Gordon – that man will be purely _relieved_ to see you again."

 

"Yeah," Jerry added, flashing a grin. "When he sees you're safe and sound, maybe he'll stop mentioning you in every sentence. It was getting tedious."

 

The eyes shone a little brighter as they descended into another little valley.

 

***

 

James crested yet another hill, this one topped with a slate-roofed cottage bearing a great iron spike into the air. He knocked on the door.

 

A great bear of a man opened the door and stared down at James and his suddenly-nervous chaperone. The man frowned and shook his head, and made as if to close the door with his bandaged arm.

 

"Sir, I'm looking for comrades of mine," said the Prince, suddenly so weary he wanted to fling himself to the ground and howl. "Their trail leads here. Have you seen them? A black-skinned man and a white-skinned woman, with a horse–"

 

The man's eyes widened. He nodded.

 

"You have? Please, tell me where I may find them!" James begged.

 

The man pointed back the way James and his guard had come... but in a direct line to the tree-cluster. Jeremiah and Lily had made a beeline for the portal instead of heading straight back to the road.

 

"Thank you, sir," James whispered, and poured gold into the man's hand. "Did they have a...a body with them?"

 

The man nodded again.

 

Pain. "Why did they come here?" James whispered. "Were they lost? Looking for another portal? Can you tell me anything?"

 

The man shook his head and pointed to his throat. Dumb but not deaf, then.

 

"I'll ask them when I find them," James said. "Thank you again, sir."

 

Miklos watched the two newcomers leave, and closed the cottage door firmly and latched it. He went back to the room where his wife slept like a corpse herself, weary from her exertions and blood-loss. He lay down beside her and closed his eyes once again.

 

***

 

"Oh, let's just close the portal and leave them in limbo," said Miguelito.

 

"My _legs_ ," growled Vautrain. "Only then will I even consider your own portal to regain your family land."

 

"That's Prince James of the West in there!" Miguelito yelled. "My revenge! My perfect revenge! Let him drift forever through nothing, anguished over the loss of what he loved most in the world! That's so _delicious_ , Vautrain! I can dream up a dozen schemes to get back California once Prince James can no longer meddle in my business doings!"

 

"Speak of your petty revenge one more time, dwarf," the wizard snarled, "and I will summon every rat from the wine cellar – you can tell them everything until they overpower you!"

 

Dead silence. Antoinette began Bach's _Toccata & Fugue in D Minor_.

 

***

 

Artie mumbled the story as he regained speech, gasping for breaths and coughing. His speaking became a good deal better, and he was able to turn his head from side to side; but he was still slumped over the horse's neck.

 

"Caroline Diaz. Loved her husband. Hid him when … he killed a man. Son took blame, confessed … arrested him. Hanged him. She killed her child to keep her man. But he hated her for it. Left her. She wails for her child. Vautrain … says he'll go back, save her son … make it right. She keeps house protected … why outsiders can't leave."

 

“So we need to work on that link between her and Vautrain.” Jerry winced and rubbed the back of his neck.

 

"Was that a mosquito?" Artemus asked.

 

"No." Jerry's eyes narrowed. "My Magical-Negro senses are twitching. We're being followed. It's good and it's bad."

 

"That was vague," Lily said sourly, but her pistol was out. So was Jerry's. "Do we confront him? We're almost to the portal!"

 

Jerry stopped. "Go on ahead, Lily, get Artemus into the attic, cut the straps and push him down the stairs in the hole if you have to."

 

"Hey!" Artemus squawked.

 

"Right now your legs are not a lot of help, Artie," Jerry said, patting their protesting rider on the back. "But trouble is following us – trouble I can deal with. I'll be along in a bit."

 

Lily looked at Jerry, anguished.

 

Jerry grinned at her. "I am _not_ going to die, baby. You and me have some unfinished business. Now go!"

 

Lily led the horse at a brisk walk, nearly to the trees. From there, the boulder, the hole in the ground...

 

Jerry turned around, prepared to block the pursuers' path. His diamonds flashed in the sun.

 

"Jerry!" James' voice called. "Jerry!"

 

Jerry beamed. "Jimmy, my man, you near scared me to death!" Then he looked at the henchman.

 

The henchman looked at him.

 

"You!" they shouted together.

 

Two pistol shots rang out, nearly together.

 

"Not a hair," Jerry said, "which is good, because I've already bled enough today." He made his way over to the gasping man in the road, bleeding out his life. He grinned, too pleased to speak for a long moment. But he had to speak. “Hey, baby,” he said, eyes shining. “The name is Jeremiah Carson. You set fire to my parents.”

 

Carl Jackson, gasping, glaring with hatred, tried to form a word, and died with the N unfinished.

 

Jerry looked up at James – and his triumphant grin died on his lips at the hell he stared into when he looked in the Prince's eyes. He gripped James with his good arm. "He's _alive_ ," he said intently to James. "It's a miracle, a real one, and we'll explain when we can, but Artie is _alive_."

 

***

 

 _Alive_.

 

No, he’d seen and touched the body, he knew what death looked like. He must be mad with lack of sleep to have heard something because he wanted to. When he touched a warm unbloodied body with his hands, or felt a pulse, heard his breath, finally had the chance to tell him – tell him nothing, Artie was dead, there would be no chance.

 

James blinked and nodded. "That's good. We need to get back, now."

 

"Yeah," Jerry said grimly. "And forget helping Vautrain, honor don't mean a damn thing with this cat. We have to free a _llorona_ and get the hell out of his clutches."

 

"You'll talk to the ghost?"

 

Jerry nodded. "With Artie's help."

 

Then Artie was a ghost himself. So much for _alive_. If he could only tell the ghost, the rest of his life might not –

  
"There, ahead! The portal!" Jerry ran toward the horse, and Lily who was unstrapping the slumped figure over the horse's neck.

 

He was so grateful they'd retrieved Artie's body. He ran forward to help.

  
"James, I'm so glad to see you!" Lily cried out, fumbling with a rein strap. "Look!"

 

"Thank you both," James said, and reached to gently bear Artemus' body down from the horse to carry him home.

 

Heavy warm weight filled his arms. A pulse throbbed under his fingers. Breath puffed in his face. Beautiful brown eyes looked straight into his. "Jim," Artemus said. "I stayed."

 

Jim staggered backward, still holding Artemus, and abyss lay under his heels. "I love you!" he screamed as he fell into darkness.

 

***

 

Vautrain and Miguelito turned toward the thumping, tumbling noise at the attic stairs. Miguelito tore up the stairs, closely followed by Voltaire (and Antoinette, fleeing her hated piano). Vautrain turned his chair around so wildly he nearly tipped over.

 

"Prince James!" Miguelito snapped, panting as he hopped each step onto the final landing. "You have a promise to keep, so if you would be so good as to..." He stopped dead. Voltaire stopped, just in time, but Antoinette smacked into Voltaire's stone wall of a back.

 

"The Prince is otherwise engaged, my short friend." Jeremiah Carson descended the last of the attic stairs, holding hands with a grinning Lily Fortune; they walked around what had caught Miguelito's attention, and sauntered past the poleaxed dwarf. "I suggest you give him a few minutes to appreciate the miracle we found for him."

 

"And the story I have to tell...well, you can see the ending of it yourself, can't you?" Lily said to Vautrain and smiled, letting let go of Jeremiah's hand as they walked downstairs to the parlor.

 

Miguelito and Voltaire – indeed, Vautrain – stared at the miracle still.

 

Two men lay at the foot of the attic stairs, so tightly wrapped around each other that they could not be told apart. Only their voices indicated their identities. One was the coldest, deadliest fighter in the West; the other was a dead man.

 

"...love you I love you Artie love you love you don’t ever leave me again ever oh love you..."

 

"... I'm safe Jim, I'm all right, I love you honey, oh how I love you, needed to learn how to make you love me..."

 

"...you were dead, I'd lost all hope, never see you again, I love you, oh it was so dark without you, so cold..."

 

"I will always come back to you, my dearest man, _ma chora banh_ ," the dead man whispered, holding James' face in his hands and kissing him over and over. "Not though we live in a hundred ages or are separated by the stars themselves. I will come back to you. This is true love."

 

"Oh, dear, God, _no_ ," moaned Vautrain, heedless of the puzzled Lily and Jeremiah standing by the table stuffing buttered bread in their mouths. "No!" He clasped his hands and concentrated, frantic. Now, sweep away that timeplace thread clinging to the door, away, never mind those idiots of Miguelito's who went after James and never came back. Now, _now_ , call in the timeplace he'd found, and nurtured and coaxed for so long, using this house's supernatural rage and grief to hold it at bay – the day of the battle, that morning, the last day he stood on his good strong legs, before the cannonball – "Bring the Prince to me!" he cried. "Lock the others in the cellar! Hurry, you idiots!" he snapped.

 

Miguelito jerked his chin at Voltaire, who stepped over and pulled the two men apart. "You have a promise to keep, Your Highness!" the dwarf snapped at the furious-eyed man thrashing in the grip of one giant hand. "Go keep your word!"

 

Jerry and Lily froze at the sight of Antoinette approaching them with a drawn pistol. "I've been playing that damn piano for hours, and shooting someone sounds very good right now," she snarled.

 

The top of the attic stairs swirled with light and mist again, a different color and smell.

 

James and Artemus looked in each other's eyes. The terror in the Prince's ebbed away, and he stopped fighting. "I will come back to you, Artie," he said, and headed down to lift Vautrain from his chair.

 

He climbed the stairs with his burden, hearing Vautrain detail his plans for the battle they would soon enter and re-enact. But the man's power over the Prince was gone, impotent. James' heart was a live coal in his breast. He had traveled across the West, and through time itself to find Artemus – and his choice of unusual companions had given Artie his life back...

 

Time itself. The vault, the one that had moved them to the house, with its Latin inscription...

  
No wonder he had Artie back. And he would never lose him again, nor doubt that he lived.

 

James ascended the attic stairs to the swirling mist, the wizard in his arms.

 

A voice called out from the mist. A voice with the high treble of a child.

 

" _Mamá! Mamá, estoy aqui_! _Donde estas, mami?"_

James froze on the stairs. "Who is that?" he whispered to Vautrain.

 

The walls creaked. The chandelier swayed. Miguelito, Voltaire and Antoinette looked about themselves with fear and dread. "No," Miguelito whispered. "No!"

 

The boy's voice called once again from the portal, high and frightened. " _Mama_! _Quiero mami! Es su hijito! Soy en este loco! Es oscuro, estoy asustado, mami! Viene y salvame!_ "

 

"No!" Vautrain shrieked, thrashing in James' arms. "No you don't–!"

 

But a response came – a shriek in a woman's anguished voice, a shriek that splintered the walls inward and shattered windows and flung balustrades.

 

" _MIJOOOO!"_

 

Everyone covered their ears at the inhuman howl of agony. But they saw it – the whirling nearly-visible mass, like the wind just before a flood, charging up the stairs and tearing out the boards with its force, driving straight at the two men between it and the voice calling from the mist.

 

James let go, and was struck aside by Carolina Diaz as she barreled the howling Vautrain straight into the portal with her. The Prince fell over the railing, which came away in his hand; he landed mostly on his feet but slammed straight to the ground and he knew he was hurt.

 

Miguelito, Voltaire and Antoinette could have taken the opportunity to seize James as their prisoner too. But since the entire house was shaking itself apart as if in a massive earthquake, now that its _llorona_ no longer held it together under the powerful pulse of a time portal, they were too busy fleeing for their lives. It was Artemus who pulled James to his feet, and Jeremiah who got the other side. "Front door, I think," Lily said, and they ran for it. The door opened and they were out on the grass. They did not stop going till they reached a stand of trees.

 

The house shuddered and sank, and fell in on itself. No trace of the portal, or of Vautrain, remained.

 

" _Pobrecita mujer_ ," Jerry said softly, no longer throwing his voice or imitating a young boy. "Forgive me, Caroline, for my trick." Lily went to his side and they embraced, and then kissed.

 

"James, you're hurt!" Artemus said.

 

"Only my leg," the Prince said, and pulled his former vassal close. "But I could fly home."

 

"You love me," Artemus said. Tears stood in his eyes. "You truly love me. And you know this." Artemus had left the man he loved, heartbroken, to seek a cure for James' stony, proud heart; and he held it in his arms.

 

"I do. I do. I'd die if I tried to live that way again, the way I was to you before," James whispered. "You are mine. Not my vassal, nor my servant. My partner. My man. My love."

 

"Forever." Artemus Gordon said to James of the West.

 

"Forever."

 

And, finally, they kissed.

 

* * *

 

"And...that's it?"

 

"Well, we know the rest, pretty much. Two happy couples at the end – very unusual couples for that time and place! Jeremiah and Lily get married, and stay in New Orleans. Jeremiah becomes a popular club singer, acclaimed by black and white audiences alike. Lily hires herself out as a chaperone for timid young ladies, for fresh young men think twice about roaming hands when another woman carrying two guns and a big knife sits behind him.

 

"James and Artie rescued Hal and Falstaff, and they headed back to their work in the West; they went home, together. And they stayed together all the rest of their days.

 

"They never did catch Miguelito, Voltaire and Antoinette, though they tried – just as all three had fled the man-eating house and vanished, so too did they give those men the slip. They had a lot of fun trying to catch them, though! I can tell you some of those later, and more besides.

 

"Now, you really should try to get some sleep to get rid of this cold. Good–"

 

"Wait, Auntie Jane. There's just... what was all that stuff about the inscription, and why Vautrain was afraid of James and Artie?"

 

"Oh, yes! Remember the tomb that had the inscription? _Verus amor fortior est quam tempus_. They thought it was a grave memento about love outlasting the ages. But its true, proper translation is: _True love is stronger than time itself_.

 

"Now go to bed."

 

"Aunt Jane? Could you... could you tell me more stories about Jim and Artie, later?"

 

"...As you wish."

 

[1] Quoted from the redoubtable classic, _Calvin and Hobbes._

[2] Michael Garrison, the creator of Wild Wild West.

[3] The black-and-white eps, the first season, were notorious for how James treated Artemus like his servant rather than his partner.

[4] Another fun aspect of first-season eps – Artie doing the comic-relief looking-on with a smile as the Hero kissed the girl.

[5] Their horses are Hal and Falstaff – named after Shakespeare's Prince and his comical confidante (driven away when Prince Hal became Henry V).

[6] TNOT Pistoleros – perhaps the most gut-wrenching of the "he thinks his partner's dead" plots done on WWW.

[7] Inspired both by Artie's ofttime disguise of an old forty-niner and by Gabby Johnson, the purveyor of Authentic Frontier Gibberish, in the movie _Blazing Saddles_.

[8] So-named because the whiskey is so strong it knocks you forty rods. Mentioned in _Huckleberry Finn_.

[9] Yes, this is Scarlett O'Hara. Don't ask me how Prince James got all the way to Georgia before backtracking to New Orleans.

[10] From TNOT Returning Dead. Guest starred Sammy Davis Jr. as that most Magical of Negroes, Jeremiah the stable boy. Can imitate James and Artie, communicate with animals, play any musical instrument, and is a crack pistol shot.

[11] So, a quick shout-out to my fellow writers of Caucasian ancestry. If you ever get the urge to write in a black character who's wise and all-knowing, but whose main job is to give the white hero information and then die heroically...don't. Just, don't.

[12] Which would distinguish Jeremiah from the usual role of the black sidekick in a movie, who never has sex, and usually dies heroically while saving his white partner (or his wife and/or kids).

[13] The "separate but equal" Jim Crow laws weren't officially enacted until the 1880s, but they'd been in unofficial force from the ending of the Civil War.

[14] Frank Sinatra, chief of the Rat Pack which included Sammy Davis Jr.

[15] William S. Hart was a silent-movie-era cowboy star, famed for his stuntwork. "Billyhart" is William Hart's name mashed into one word.

[16] Dean Martin, another Rat Pack member.

[17] Lily Fortune, Artemus Gordon's old sweetheart, whom we meet in TNOT Big Blast. Another wonderful angsty "thinks his partner's dead" episode.

[18] I once saw a sign held by a black protestor – "Your 'Heritage' is My Slavery." A good rebuttal to Confederate-flag apologists.

[19] One of these days I *will* write that horse-slash story about Jim and Artie's mounts.

**Author's Note:**

> This story first appeared in the Wild Wild West zine _Gentlemen Never Tell 5_.


End file.
